I Love Tea

That's just how I feel at the moment. It really has nothing to do with this post.
Actually, this post is sort of about my weekend.
Its sort of about food.
There aren't any awful pictures of me this time, I promise.
(Sincere apologies for the carrot vampire experience, if you were there for that post)

Aaaannnnyway...
Once upon a time, in a land far far away
blah blah blah...

This is Sasa. (see picture below)
Sasa is Ben's wife. Ben is a very nice man who works with my dad.
Sasa is pretty much my hero. I want to kidnap her and take her back to the states. I told Ben this. He told me
"I don't think I would like that very much"
Don't worry, Ben. Humans are adaptable creatures.
You'd live.


Story time!
If you just come here for the pictures, skip this part.
So sometime last week M&P and I went out to meet some friends of ours (I use the term 'ours' loosely since they're all people P works with) at a bar somewhere. I got to meet some folks I've heard of but never met. Among them were Ben and his wife, Sasa (see above). Ive been hearing since before I came here what a great cook she is. I love to cook (an enthusiasm not matched by my level of skill- aka, I kinda suck at it) but I'm geeked anyway.

When I'm introduced to her I ooh and ahh over her reputation and she's all lovely and cute and Chinese and says 'you come over, I teach you how to cook'.
Oooooo! Where do I sign up??
Also, we make plans for her and I and another rather fun friend of hers/our/etc to go shopping at the Korean fashion mall later in the week.
My week comes and goes. I sit on the couch and Internet stalk craigslist for jobs.
Friday rolls around- the prearranged shopping day.
I'm supposed to meet them outside out apartment complex at ten am.

At 9.45 P calls.
Where are you? They're looking for you outside!

I scurry outside. I walk up and down the sidewalk.
No remotely familiar Chinese women in sight.
A car drives by, with an unfamiliar Chinese man inside, alone.

'HeeeeyurrgOI', he yells at me.
Whatever, dude, I don't know you. I keep walking.

Chinese bloke does a u-turn behind me, and pulls up next to me on the road.
I'm pretty sure I'm about to be mugged.
At ten am outside a police station.

'I am driver for Dermot so-and-so' he says.
Oh, ok. Dermot is the husband of Other Nice Chinese Lady I'm Going Shopping With.
I hop in the car.
Four nano seconds later, I have a slight panic attack when I realize I just got a car with a random Chinese man and he's probably driving me off into the boonies to trade me for black market organ samples.
Thirty seconds later, we see Sasa and ONCLIGSW, and I breath a sigh of relief. No black market organ samples today.
Shopping was surprisingly fun. Korean fashions are supposedly more interesting than Chinese. I bought a weird sweater/top thing with a wild turtle/cowl neck and batwing...eh...its hard to describe. Its neat.

Looking for pants was more or less impossible, due to my Rather Large Bottom, which does not fit into any Chinese (or Korean) pants.
I found a cute pair of grey leggings (yes, leggings, thank you very much) with zippers on them for some reason. They would go nicely with my weirdo top, I reasoned. I held them up.

They would have fit a four year old.

ONCLIGSW says 'oh, they'll stretch'

Sasa holds them up to my Rather Large Bottom, stretches them as far as they'll go, wrinkles up her cute little nose and says,
'I think...too small'...

We have a good laugh. I cry inside a little. Then I realize I was just saved from buying leggings, and I cheer up.

END OF THAT STORY.

Saturday rolls around, and I'm supposed to go with Sasa and Ben to the big market in Dalian, known as the Wet Market. We're going to buy all the ingredients and then head back to their place where she's going to show me how to cook some stuff (by that I mean hang out in their kitchen and drool while I take notes). A bunch of people find out and it turns into more of a Big Group, but whatever.
P goes with us to the market, along with Scott, another friend of ours.
I love markets.

First on the list was a chicken.
Look at this lovely chicken.
Look how happy and alive he is. (he/she, whatever)
Then a grumpy little Chinese man grabs him, sticks him in a box, weighs him, takes him out, slits his poor little chicken throat, (urg) chucks him in a barrel where he thrashes around and spills blood everywhere and dies, then sticks him in a hot water bath to loosen the feathers, a spin-dryer thing to remove the feathers, and then finally, onto the table to be butchered.
It was an experience. I have all kinds of opinions about it.
At least it was fresh.
And they didn't look all diseased and malformed like chicken farm pictures.


You could also get pigeons, ducks, and another type of chicken whose skin is black.
And dog, down the street, but we dont talk about that.


Whew! After the Chicken Death experience, I needed a break.
Look! Snacks!


This lady was a sweetheart. (Cant believe I just wrote that)
These were cabbage dumplings (jiaozi) and they were fab-u-lous.


I hung out and stalked her for a bit, then she finally noticed me playing paparazzi.
So she looked up and smiled.
Thank god for fast shutter speeds.


Then into the market, a series of huge buildings, for all the rest of the ingredients.
Pork ribs.
At least I didn't have to go through a Pig Killing Experience as well.
They haggle over how much and how to cut it, then the butcher slices it however you want.


Then she hacks up the ribs into bite sized chunks.


Finally onto something that didn't used to have vocal cords.


Yay for vegetables.
I'm sure all the Chinese people are like 'what is this crazy white girl doing taking close ups of eggplant?'


These giant things are picked bamboo shoots.
Shoots. Yeah, right.




Persimmons.


Back to dead things.
This picture is super yellow because he started hassling me to pay him for taking the picture and I didn't wait for my camera to adjust to the light. I just snapped and ran.
Note the weird black skin chickens in the front.


Then onto fish.
Some of it frozen, lots of it live.
Huuuuge prawns.




Feesh feesh feesh.
I don't have a photo of the sea worms, which are officially the Grossest Thing Ever.
They look like (among other things) deflated pink intestines with no discernible head or tail, heaving and squelching around in a shallow tray of water.




As we were leaving, I caught a glimpse of this guy...


Then we went home for a bit, cleaned up and headed to Ben and Sasa's.
She was already cooking, so I parked myself in the most out of the way corner I could find and took furious notes. Not before I was kinda forced to eat one of these.
In their defense, they had good flavor. For feet.


Sasa is from a town in Sichuan, which is known for spicy food.
These pictures are all terrible, by the way.
These are the pork ribs, cooked with enough chili to kill a rhino.
They were fabulous.


She made...hmm...spicy pork ribs, vegetarian stir fry, spicy green beans, shrimp, thai noodle salad, a chicken soup, and some crazy fish thing, all that night, using two burners and two woks.
No recipes. All from her head. I was in awe.
And standing in a puddle of drool.


This is an awful photo (my camera just doesn't DO food shots) but its the best shrimp Ive ever had in my life. Oh Lordy...


Delicious Thai Noodle Salad with shrimp...


And our amazing feast.
I will most likely dream about this tonight.
I made sure to sit next to the shrimp.


Anyway, since Ive talked your ears off already, suffice to say that this was something close to the best meal ever, my butt wont fit in Korean pants, I didn't buy leggings, and Ive finished my first 100g of oolong and have moved on to the red tea, which is a semi life-altering switch.

Also, I saw a brand new shiny black Porshe Cayman (go google a picture) in our parking garage basement, which is like the hottest sports car in existence. There was a Minnie mouse snow globe on the dashboard. I nearly died.